blurb on self esteem:

It's about moving on from the people that don't find you good enough. It's about realizing that their opinion isn't the final word on whether you're worthwhile or not. It's easy to want to curl up in a corner  and hide from the world, but if you do that then you are accepting their opinion of you as your ultimate truth.  In regards to all relationships, platonic or romantic, think of people as shoes that dont have the size marked. You try them on and they dont fit. That doesn't mean anything is wrong with your foot or that you should go permanently barefoot. It just means the shoe wasn't made to fit you, so grab another pair and try again.  eventually, you'll find a perfect match.

On Cheating and 31 days of Hades.

so reality comes to call as the declining numbers on the scale begin to slow drastically. I realized that I need to up the ante - such as incorporating some exercise into my dieting regime.
So I've decided to start the squats challenge. What is that you ask? It's booty in a bottle. It's growing peaches from Panini's. It's 31 days of dropping it like it's hot. So starting tomorrow morning, I'll be jamming to a song and squatting out my quota of the day. I've never made it past day 9, but I'm going to stick it this time. For those of you wanting to follow suit, here's the program picture!

I'll need to throw in some cardio as well, and now that I have a VCR, I guess I can also do a half hour of Double Time with Billy Blanks....hm. I know some people say "go out and run!" but I don't run. I hate running! In a zombie apocalypse I'll end up dead if I can't hold my ground, lol. Especially if I keeping throwing in little cheats on a near daily basis.


*sips mountain dew*



And I need to start making more Real sacrifices......
Starting with the aforementioned mountain dew. 24oz of sheer mood-lifting, energy-spiking, glorious sugar. Fresh. Cold. I've had about 3/4 of a cup out of the bottle. Oh, did I mention it's chock full of sugar?

yea. That's a lot.

*cringe*

so.....down the drain...it goes. No literally, I'm in the bathroom and I'm letting it pour down the bathroom sink drain. (I'd like to mention that my soul is draining away with it.) Why? Because I want it, soooo badly! More than anything I've craved on this diet, I craved Mountain Dew. So one day I had a can. Then a couple days later I had a 16oz bottle...well, you know the story. So, now my weight loss has come to a near halt (about a pound a week) and I can only blame myself!

I don't crave candy or sweet breads, even before the diet, that stuff was low on my priority scale. Instead, I was hooked on soda. I mean legit, I would buy a 64oz coke on my way to work, then buy a fresh can with my lunch. So the sudden halt of all sweet beverages was the hardest thing for me. Heck, I don't even drink milk anymore!

Originally, I was surviving with crystal lite packets but then my doctor told me the chemicals in that mess with your head so I went back to plain water. Ugh. Yea, I'm not going to make it on this diet if I can't at least have the crystal lite packets in my water. So I'm seriously going back to drinking those otherwise, I'll end up blowing the whole thing. If they make me crazy, it's ok, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.

An interesting thing today

So I headed home after a long but pleasant day at work and I happened to decide that I wanted to buy snack food tonight (shame on me I know....)

anyway, so I'm leaving the gas station and there is this lady sitting by the door and she's not asking for money, she's not looking at anyone, doesn't seem to expect anything. Actually she looks like she's waiting for something, maybe a bus? but there's no bus on that corner. After a brief assesment of my feelings, I decided to ask her if she needed anything. call it a whim, but I couldn't leave her there in good conscience. I'd regret it.

(I tend to do things on impulse I probably don't think things through as much as I should, but I'm writing this blog so obviously I'm alive.)

she was about 65 yrs old, at least that's what she said. She just needed a ride down the block, so I took her. She offered me gas money but I waived it away, kindness is free. .

   She chatted away nervously the whole way, but I guess in her place I'd be nervous too. Alot. I'd be picturing all sorts of kidnap and daring escape and thinking why the heck did I accept a ride from a stranger.

Anyway, I don't feel particularly special for doing it, but I am glad that I was there to do it. Ppl are so full of paranoia about helping each other that we often overlooked people that really could use help.

I'm always being told that people are faking being in need, moochers, etc... Meh.  There probably are people like that, but I think that if we spend our lives thinking that way then we'll never really get to change anyone's life because we're too busy being cynical. I think that helping one another is part of what keeps us human, so maybe she'll pass on the courtesy and the world will be a better place because of it.

Murder: a wallet's tale

I'd like to start by making it perfectly clear that I'm among the most fiscally irresponsible people on earth. I'm fairly certain the U.S. Treasury and I are neck and neck for 1st place in the Spending vs. Income Deficit division.

   Given that, I'd like to announce my Extreme excitement at being introduced to Preapproved-Credit Catalogs and Layaway.

(queue trumpets, exploding confetti, and heralding cherubs from Debt Hell.)

It's not that I've never heard of layaway, or seen a catalog but I've never had my own.....

                 It's Heady.

             .....like Love......

           and Debilitating.

           ........like a Virus......

It invaded my mail (Catalogs magically started appearing with preapprovals), Holiday Layaway Specials flooded my favorite stores (Only 10% Down!! ), and ultimately.....the spending disease infiltrated my veins. I didn't have a chance.

   I won't go into all the grisly, dollar-wrenching, paycheck-gutting details...but suffice it to say that from this day hence, my wallet and account will refer to this period as

     THE EPOCH OF DARKNESS.

Because They are Worth Remembering. 9/11

I woke up this morning, and I went about like another day. I took my brother to school, put gas in my car, ate breakfast...Then I went upstairs and Boaz, a friend of mine from work, had put up an image of an american flag.

and it hit me, fresh. Like new. I remembered. And I was ashamed of myself, because I'd started this day like any day without thought to that day. To what this day means now. So I'm going to remember with this blog everything about that day. Please feel free to post what you remember.


I remember watching the news after the first tower had been hit. I decided that it was worth it this morning, to go back and watch everything. I watched the clip of the first tower being hit

and then I watched the news coverage for the second tower. You see, that morning, I was woken by my mom and my nana who were already watching the news. I was young. I was 13. But they were frantic and I could see that they were afraid. So I was afraid. and as we're watching the coverage of the first tower, we saw when the second plane hit and I remember feeling shocked because this was real. Real people had just died.

 

 

 

Everyone was afraid of planes from then on for a long time. My parents both worked in the travel industry, and shortly thereafter, they both lost their jobs because people were afraid of planes, so were we though, so we can't blame them. Things got hard for us for a good while, but we could bear it. We hadn't paid the ultimate sacrifice. We didn't lose a family member or a loved one. If need be we could sell the house and our stuff and live in a small apartment, so I knew we were ok. But other kids lost their parents, and other parents lost their kids in that. It wasn't worth complaining that we were having a financial issue. Not to me anyway, but I was young and trusted my parents would know how to handle anything anyway.

I remember parents didn't let their kids go to school. I tried to talk them into letting us go, and I remember the day they did let us. We went and everything was somber. Everyone stayed inside. After a few hours, my dad came to the school and took me, my sister, and my little brother home. They just couldn't be away from us. I thought it was a little silly at the time, we were no where near NY. But now that I'm 25, I understand. I don't have kids, but I get it that they were afraid. Hadn't we just learned that Anything can happen? So, we just stayed home and watched video of what was happening and listened to anything said about it. The president speaking, the interviews of emergency personnel, clips of poeple that had take footage with their phones, and clips of those that had lost families. My heart still bleeds for them. I'm ashamed. Ashamed that I forgot for even a little bit. These people, they're worth remembering. The firefighters, the police, the medical personnel, the bystanders, the workers, the children. We're Americans. Despite any differences we may have, that's the Bottom Line.


To finish, I just want to share this video clip. Jon Stewart coming back on the air after 9/11. My love to everyone that suffered that day and is still suffering now.

My Dressing Room Meltdown

Ok, I know I haven't really introduced myself, and that's mostly because I'm a coward, lol. But you'll need a little backround in order to fully appreciate this story. My name is wendy, but I go by wendalynne and Wilo too. I'm 25, still a student, I work at a call center (which ironically, turned out to be the Best Place to Work Ever and I Love it!), and I've been a big girl most of my life, peaking around last year when I hit the 3x size and just about wanted to die.

So, anyway, story time.

It started when my supervisor, who is also my friend, told me about a fellow coworker that was on a diet and she'd lost 50lbs. I love hearing about how ppl succeed with that stuff so long as they don't try pushing me to do anything. He didn't push me though, so I listened to him and ultimately to her when I asked her about it. she told me where to go and gave me a card after describing what sounded like torment.

I tucked the card away in the deep recesses of my purse and promptly forgot all about it. It involved calorie counting, multiple pills, and weekly shots.

I DON'T DO SHOTS.

and anyone that knows me knows that I rank pretty dang high on the list of ppl who are bad at taking pills on time.

Somehow, I ended up being dragged by my family into this diet. As per. So I did it. I shut my eyes when it was needle time and took my pills when I remembered to do so. I've been on this a little over a month now, and of course my family tells me I'm losing weight but I always believe family says that stuff too soon. Next day they'd say "you're already thinner!" Right....

So, a couple nights ago after work, I decide to go to sushi with a friend of mine. I took a good look at myself in a mirror though, while still at work, and realized my shirt wasn't cute, it was sloppy. It looked all stretched out and...well, like something I could sleep in. So I rushed to Ross to buy a shirt to wear that would be cute. Because I'm like that.

I probably made security paranoid because I rushed in without a basket, grabbed a few blouses and raced to the dressing room. But I had only a limited amount of time before I'd be late. Anyway, so I'm trying them on and immediately realize something's Wrong.

They don't fit. None of them do.

puzzled, I go out, hand them to the attendant and go back to the rack. More clothes, different size.....
They don't fit either. I can't believe it. My eyes get all watery and I can't breathe. (Has it been that long since I bought clothes that I don't know my size?)

I go back to the clothes rack and get more clothes. But not in the Women's department this time. In the Ladies department. I dare to try on XL.

I go back to the dressing room and try on five blouses. Well, more like tear through five blouses.
On-Off-On-Off-Onoffonoffon...

Pause.

They fit. They ALL Fit.

I started giggling like an idiot and crying. not in a psycho blubbering way, (spanish soap opera style), but in a choked omg-I'm-not-about-to-cry-in-public-stop-crying! Laughing kind of way.

I bought three of the five shirts and wanted to share my success with literally every person that came within 5 feet of me but Fortunately I held it in lol.

I was late to sushi, but it was worth the glorious feeling I carried with me.

expectations

wonder bent to facts,
hope bowed to reality.
I grew up and ceased to play,
That's the road paved by society.

Life, not measured by minutes, but moments
Had left me at this start,
When growing up erased my dreams,
When I sacrificed my heart.

then I bled and withered,
and my soul was wont to rot,
Til I realized the void
And remembered that which was forgot.

For I had reasoned by the season of my life,
and found too soon my grave,
now I walk a new direction,
and it's my own path I pave.

The Search

I'm tired of words without meaning, even when I say them myself. of lies as our alibis of truth ringing hollow in the bones of our lives. Tired of half-truths and regrets, Of the void, and self-debts. I tire even of writing, And trying to express More than I can say, For I've said nothing in all. A cycle of sorts, No beginning, no end, Just a middle ground Lost at the start And I'm mute as I wonder What I'm trying to scream Because words aren't enough, and life isn't a dream.